When Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad
popularized the catchphrase “Malaysia Boleh!”—Malaysia Can!—in the 1990s, it was meant to showcase the economic achievements of an authoritarian state. Now that Dr. Mahathir, 92, is returning to power at the head of a disparate “Alliance of Hope” of pro-democracy forces, including former foes he once put behind bars, “Malaysia Boleh” has acquired a different meaning.

“Malaysia’s message is that democratic transitions are possible,” said Tony Pua, a lawmaker with the new ruling alliance. “Dreams can come true if people stand united.” Indeed, while plenty of risks lie ahead, the Muslim-majority country of 32 million people has shown that the rise of authoritarianism is not inevitable—not in Southeast Asia, not among Muslim nations, and not in the world at large.

“
There is still a lot of democratic ferment in the world.
”

As election surprises go, few are more inspiring. It’s the first time since the country became independent in 1957 that its ruling party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), with its massive patronage machine, has been voted out of power. The now-ousted Prime Minister
Najib Razak
had squelched investigations into the multibillion-dollar 1MDB corruption scandal and had done all he could to handicap the Alliance of Hope, with last-minute gerrymandering of election districts, heavy restrictions on the media, and the imprisonment or disqualification of opposition leaders. But in a political world dominated by social media and instant communication, Mr. Najib couldn’t do enough to tip the scales.

“What has happened in Malaysia tells people: Even if it’s not a level playing field, don’t give up,” said
Larry Diamond,
a sociologist at Stanford University who specializes in democracy studies. “There is no reason to give up on democracy. There is still a lot of democratic ferment in the world.”

Historic Malaysian Election: Why the World Is Watching

Malaysia’s surprise election came as freedoms are shrinking around the globe. Its neighbor Thailand has been under military rule since 2014. In the Philippines, President
Rodrigo Duterte
has championed authoritarian populism since coming to power in 2016. Among countries where the Arab Spring generated such hope in 2011, only Tunisia is relatively free. Democratic norms are under assault in Hungary and Poland. Turkey, the one-time role model for Muslim democracy, has essentially embraced one-man rule since a failed 2016 coup against President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

One reason Malaysia’s Alliance of Hope could pull off its victory Wednesday is because its leaders showed remarkable maturity in forgetting and forgiving the bad blood among them. Dr. Mahathir readily admitted his past mistakes as he reached out to
Anwar Ibrahim,
the opposition leader whom he and then Mr. Najib, on another occasion, had imprisoned on charges of sodomy. On Friday, Dr. Mahathir said that Mr. Anwar would be pardoned. Mr. Anwar is supposed to replace Dr. Mahathir as prime minister once he returns to parliament in a coming by-election.

The alliance between Dr. Mahathir and Mr. Anwar is comparable to the reconciliation between President F.W. de Klerk and
Nelson Mandela
that paved the way to South Africa’s democracy, said Paul Wolfowitz, a former World Bank president and former U.S. deputy secretary of defense, who has long campaigned for Mr. Anwar’s freedom. “I’m very proud of what the Malaysians have done,” he said. “It could very well be an example of how to overcome the past, which is a challenge to every democratic transition.”

Former Malaysian prime minister and leader of the opposition alliance, Mahathir Mohamad, told supporters on Thursday that he expected to be sworn in as prime minister.
Photo:
ZUMAPRESS.com

Another major division bridged in Malaysia’s democratic upheaval was between the ethnic Malay majority and the country’s large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. As prime minister and the head of UMNO in the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Mahathir had built a system of economic and political discrimination in favor of the Malays, while often stoking anti-Chinese sentiment. This time, the Alliance of Hope included the leading Chinese politicians, while staying apart from the hard-line Islamist PAS party. “Mahathir is a very ironic savior of democracy,” said
Bridget Welsh,
a Malaysia expert at John Cabot University in Rome. “The guy who has damaged Malaysian institutions so much in the past has come to save the day.”

Still, Malaysia’s new government faces formidable challenges, not least because of its disparate composition. “While we watch on, hopeful and relatively optimistic, this is a really dangerous time in Malaysia’s politics,” cautioned John Blaxland, director of the Southeast Asia Institute at the Australian National University. “In other countries in a similar stage of development, there have been moments of euphoria that preceded a pretty sad spiral into political disorder, if not anarchy.”